News & Analysis
Teardown: Inside RIM Blackberry Playbook LTE
Allan Yogasingam
8/10/2012 5:38 PM EDT
Let’s call a spade a spade: Research-in-Motion’s latest consumer electronic release, the Blackberry Playbook LTE, is highly unlikely to reverse the current tide of negativity that comes with any news from the Waterloo, Canada-based manufacturer. The original RIM Playbook, released on April 19, 2011, was met with much fanfare and just as much negative press—as its launch was met with all sorts of performance issues and much-maligned disappointment that basic applications, like e-mail, were not standard. From a hardware perspective, the Blackberry Playbook was technologically comparable to their competition at the time, like the Motorola XOOM, the Samsung Galaxy Tab and the Apple iPad 2.
Despite the technical similarities to their competition, the early issues with the OS and the lack of applications eventually doomed the Playbook. During its first two quarters after release, only 700,000 units were shipped. In comparison, the Apple iPad 2 shipped nearly 19 times as many units as RIM. Following several months of lackluster sales, RIM drastically reduced the price of the original Playbook from $499 to $199 for the 16-GB version which, spurred sales significantly but at a loss for RIM.
Based on these circumstances, many believed that RIM would exit the tablet business and turn its focus on its struggling handset division. Imagine the surprise when RIM announced on its corporate blog that the much-rumored LTE edition of the Playbook would be released on Aug. 9. The original Playbook required a newer Blackberry for baseband data access. The new Playbook LTE not only removes the need for "Blackberry Bridge," it includes the latest baseband technology to make it a standalone product. Opening up the Playbook LTE will reveal what other technology changes RIM has made.
Back of comms board (click on image to expand and enlarge).
Front of comms board (click on image to expand and enlarge).
Despite the technical similarities to their competition, the early issues with the OS and the lack of applications eventually doomed the Playbook. During its first two quarters after release, only 700,000 units were shipped. In comparison, the Apple iPad 2 shipped nearly 19 times as many units as RIM. Following several months of lackluster sales, RIM drastically reduced the price of the original Playbook from $499 to $199 for the 16-GB version which, spurred sales significantly but at a loss for RIM.
Based on these circumstances, many believed that RIM would exit the tablet business and turn its focus on its struggling handset division. Imagine the surprise when RIM announced on its corporate blog that the much-rumored LTE edition of the Playbook would be released on Aug. 9. The original Playbook required a newer Blackberry for baseband data access. The new Playbook LTE not only removes the need for "Blackberry Bridge," it includes the latest baseband technology to make it a standalone product. Opening up the Playbook LTE will reveal what other technology changes RIM has made.
Back of comms board (click on image to expand and enlarge).
Front of comms board (click on image to expand and enlarge).
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hm
8/10/2012 8:01 PM EDT
Good effort and good work. Can it be made little more concise? More people will read if it is made that way.
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SIR
8/17/2012 6:07 PM EDT
I think the article was concise and well-eritten and would have suffered if abbreviated.
Re the negative tone on the first few paragraphs, how does a responsible journalist deny a product's history?
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Sanjib.Acharya
8/20/2012 2:34 AM EDT
The article is very well written as the most useful information such as bill of material of the cards inside, are presented in the first couple of pages.
The improvement I would suggest would be to incorporate a better way of browsing to a particular page...it is difficult to browse back to page number one again from 20. :)
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slc2173
8/11/2012 1:16 AM EDT
Writers need to cool it with the RIM negativity. My friends, who all own ipads, think playbook is an excellent product and would probably buy one instead of a new ipad. If you guys would let people think for themselves instead of spewing bad stuff about RIM products, then maybe sales would take off.
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eewiz
8/11/2012 8:37 AM EDT
I have tried Playbook several times. In itself Playbook is a decent product. However the ecosystem ( apps +developers+ content) lacks big time. Hence I dont have much hope for this.
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melgross
8/11/2012 9:01 AM EDT
Please, don't make things up. Surveys of iPad owners (I'm one) have shown that 90% wouldn't buy another product. Certainly not a Playbook. If anyone would buy something else, it would be anything other than a Playbook.
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ReneCardenas
8/13/2012 11:42 AM EDT
Melgross, but the world does not revolve around Apple products my friend, now a days there are many options! and to assume that only the Apple cult followers are the only valid population to follow is to be deluicional.
I won't drink that cool aid, I am happy with my choices. But i won't claim that are the only valid ones ;-) so chillax and let other people live with their free will.
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Patk0317
8/11/2012 2:57 PM EDT
I think RIM is about to go the way of Palm Pilot. Blackberry was once on top and is still a good product, but eclipsed by Apple and Samsung.
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agk
8/13/2012 7:30 AM EDT
On the communication board there are 4 parts with white dos. I think they are ferrite core transformers.They add weight to the product and also bulky.
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ughhhh
8/13/2012 1:27 PM EDT
Yeah, but ferrites are very useful when making efficient voltage converters. Or do you have a better solution?
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Sheetal.Pandey
8/19/2012 8:48 AM EDT
Its a tough market. APple and Samsung already in fight where is the space for RIM unless they get more user frendliness approach in their products.I have Motorola's droid razor and I love it.
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